Trump
to Europe: Drop dead
It’s
time to say it: Donald Trump is a mortal threat to the Western
alliance.
By ALEX
MASSIE 1/17/17, 12:51 AM CET Updated 1/17/17, 12:51 PM CET
EDINBURGH — It is,
remarkably, no exaggeration to say that almost everyone in Europe
awaits the presidency of Donald Trump with a sense of dread. Almost
everyone, that is, save for the resurgent parties of the populist
far-right who see, in Trump, an example they dearly wish to emulate.
The European
mainstream, however, shrinks from Trump as it has never shrunk from
any previous American president. No, not Ronald Reagan and no, not
even George W Bush either. Trump has not even taken office and he is
already the most dangerous U.S. president in living memory. Perhaps,
even, of all time.
Whatever else they
were, Reagan and Bush were both men of some political experience.
Trump, as he told the Times of London and Germany’s Bild, is “not
a politician” and that is precisely the point. The generous
assessment of the president-elect’s potential allows that his less
than conventional approach to international affairs ensures that
America’s foes will not easily be able to fathom or predict his
intentions.
There is some merit
in being a surprise package. But even if that is the case, the same
consideration applies to the United States’ allies. And the
questions being asked in European capitals tonight are simple one: Is
this a president we can rely upon? A president whose word is his
bond? A president with whom we can do business?
The evidence, as
revealed by Trump’s first post-election interview with the European
press, is not reassuring. For 60 years, NATO and the European Union
have been at the heart of the transatlantic security and trade
relationships. Judged by Trump’s interview, that is no longer the
case. The new president doesn’t think the EU “matters very much
for the United States;” NATO is “obsolete.” If this rhetoric is
etched by a shift in American foreign policy, then the rules and
assumptions that have underpinned the Western world since World War
II will no longer apply. We will be in uncharted territory.
Trump’s reasons
for thinking NATO obsolete are also revealing. The alliance is
decrepit because it isn’t “taking care of terror.” It never
seems to occur to Trump that NATO, whose members include the Baltic
states, could have other purposes than just targeting terror cells
and movements around the world. (It’s also worth noting that the
only time in its history that Article 5 of the NATO charter, which
requires allies to come to one another’s defense, was invoked was
in response to the 9/11 attacks.)
While deploring
Russia’s intervention in Syria, Trump insists there is an
opportunity to “make some good deals with Russia.” Removing
sanctions in return for a reduction in nuclear weapons would
effectively grant the U.S.’s blessing to Russia’s invasions of
Ukraine. Which in turn would induce some unease in Tallinn, Riga and
Vilnius. How can Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania have any confidence in
the Atlantic alliance now? Would Trump rally to their defence in the
event they were targeted by fresh Russian aggression? At present, it
is hard to believe so, which truly would render NATO obsolete.
As Nicholas Soames,
a British Conservative MP and grandson of Winston Churchill, tweeted,
“Trump needs to show he is not naive and understands that Putin’s
aim is to destroy the transatlantic alliance and weaken the EU.”
That naivete is already on full and proud display. There was nothing
in Trump’s interview that would worry the Russian president but
plenty to appall almost every significant European government.
Indeed, Russian state TV greeted Trump’s remarks with the satisfied
headline, “Trump slapped the West.”
Asked whether he
trusts German Chancellor Angela Merkel more than he trusts Putin,
Trump could say only, “Well, I start off trusting both — but
let’s see how long that lasts.” This, like so much else Trump
says, is a statement of flabbergasting proportions. The United
States, it seems, no longer has allies. But that, of course, is the
logical implication of his ‘America First” rhetoric.
Nor will Trump’s
enthusiasm for Brexit have gone unnoticed in Berlin, Paris or
Brussels either. His predictions that the eurozone will collapse and
that other member states will seek to leave the EU appeared to made
with an unbecoming relish and confirmed that, for the first time
since WWII, the United States is led by a man who views Europe as a
problem — and even as a competitor — rather than as a partner and
ally.
Revealingly, Trump
rejected the traditional view that trade is a win-win proposition. In
Trump’s world, it is a zero-sum game in which only one side can
win. Present arrangements, he said, are “very unfair to the United
States” and transatlantic trade is “not a two-way street.” Just
as feckless Europeans refuse to pay enough towards the cost of their
own defense, so they fleece a weak and timorous United States when it
comes to trade. The concept of comparative, or even mutual, advantage
appears utterly alien to him. That thought alone should remind
pro-Brexit Britons enthused by Trump’s lukewarm words about
post-Brexit U.S.-U.K. trade deal that not everything that glitters in
Trump Tower is golden. Or reliable.
And that is the crux
of the matter. Europe must now, as Merkel put it in response to
Trump’s shocking comments, “make its own future.” Perhaps
President Trump will be a more conventional figure than
President-elect Trump, but the early indications are somewhat less
than reassuring. The United States remains the world’s
indispensable nation, but we may be about to find out what happens
when the indispensable nation decides it is no longer capable of
assuming the role it once considered its birthright.
When the world’s
leader departs, what fills the void? America’s oldest, closest
friends are only now waking up to the grim idea that however bad they
thought President Trump might be the reality may prove much, much,
worse than that.
Alex Massie writes
for the Spectator, the Times and other publications.
Authors:
Alex Massie
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